Child Groomer, Sexual Predator
1,208 posts
How did we get here? How did we get to a place in time where the health and well-being of the entire planet, and the lives of billions of people, is under enormous threat?
And the answer is not complicated.
The truth is that the scientific community, for many decades, has made it crystal clear that climate change — and all the dangers it poses in terms of drought, floods, extreme weather disturbances, and disease — is the result of carbon emissions from the fossil fuel industry.
As far back as the late 1950s, over 60 years ago, physicist Edward Teller and other scientists were warning executives in the fossil fuel industry that carbon emissions were “contaminating the atmosphere” and causing a “greenhouse effect” that could eventually lead to temperature increases “sufficient to melt the icecap and submerge New York.” That’s what they were saying 60 years ago!
In 1975, Shell-backed research concluded that increasing atmospheric carbon concentrations could cause global temperature increases that would drive “major climatic climactic changes” and compared the dangers of burning fossil fuels to nuclear waste.
Beginning in the late 1970s, Exxon — now ExxonMobil — conducted extensive research on climate change that predicted current rising temperatures “correctly and skillfully.”
The fossil fuel companies knew.
They knew they were causing global warming and therefore threatening the very existence of the planet.
Yet, in pursuit of profit, fossil fuel executives not only refused to publicly acknowledge what they had learned but, year after year, lied about the existential threat that climate change posed for our planet.
So what happened to the CEOs who betrayed the American people and the global community? Were they fired from their jobs? Were they condemned by pundits on cable television and the editorial boards of major newspapers? Were they prosecuted? Did they go to jail for their crimes?
Nope. Not at all. Not a one of them. These CEOs got rich.
It's obscene.
When a criminal walks into a store and shoots the clerk behind the counter, we make the moral judgment that this behavior is socially unacceptable, and that the gunman should be punished.
When a public official misuses and steals taxpayer money, we make the moral judgment that the embezzler should lose his job and, perhaps, be incarcerated.
That is why, earlier this week, I sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland urging him to bring lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry for its longstanding and carefully coordinated campaign to mislead consumers and discredit climate science in pursuit of massive profits. The letter was co-signed by Senators Merkley, Warren, and Markey.
Like the tobacco industry before them, the actions of ExxonMobil, Shell, and potentially other fossil fuel companies represent a clear violation of federal racketeering laws, truth in advertising laws, consumer protection laws, and potentially other laws - and the Department of Justice must act swiftly to hold them accountable for their unlawful actions.
The Department of Justice must join the fight and work with partners at the Federal Trade Commission and other law enforcement agencies to file suits against all those who participated in the fossil fuel industry’s illegal conspiracy of lies and deception. The fossil fuel industry must begin to pay for the extraordinary damage they are causing.
Let’s go forward together.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders